Changing behaviors key to protecting environment sustainably

Hanoi (VNA) – The “7 Day
Challenge” campaign, an initiative from Sweden, has arrived in Vietnam.
It encourages the participants to eat, move and live without harming the
environment.

“Since I came some years ago, I met so many
young Vietnamese who think very much about security and safety in daily life.
It’s about air safety, water safety, food safety - what does it come from? Of
course, traffic safety,” Pereric Hogberg, Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam told
Vietnam News Agency on the launch of the campaign.

The event was organised by the United Nations,
the Swedish Embassy in Vietnam and the Live & Learn Environmental Education
Centre. It has three periods, starting on April 10, April 17 or April 24 and
lasts for a week. It was previously held in Kenya, Brazil, India and Indonesia.

The campaign’s hashtag #7_Ngay_Thach_Thuc or
#7DayChallengeVN has drawn much interest of people who want to challenge
themselves to achieve a smarter life.

Nguyen Viet Lan shared on the hashtag that her
new way of travelling to work is bus rapid transit. “I choose this because air
pollution continues to cause severe health problems for people in Hanoi. I
believe move smart can help reduce this phenomenon.”

Bus rapid transit (BRT) - a way of travelling to protect the environment (Source: Nguyen Viet Lan, a participator of the campaign)

The Green Innovation and Development Centre
(GreenID) and the Vietnam Live and Learn Centre for Environment and Community
reported earlier this year that alarming pollution readings were recorded
in Hanoi in 2017.

In 2017, Hanoi had 257 days when the Air Quality
Index exceeded the safe limit set by the WHO while statistics from the US
Embassy in Hanoi revealed that the atmospheric quality in the city was much lower
than India’s New Delhi and Mumbai.

The country was reported to spend about 780
million USD annually on public health costs caused by air pollution.

Lan also shared she changed her habit of using
single-use bags.

“This morning I brought some reusable bags with
me and tried to refuse plastic bags when buying food, except for fish, as it
cannot be put together with other food, Lan said. “[I] will remember to bring a
reusable box for fish next time.”

Using reusable bags is one way to reduce plastic pollution (Source: Nguyen Viet Lan, a participator of the campaign)

The use of plastic bags remains a problem in
Vietnam as there is a lack of information about the importance of
environmentally-friendly bags. An Ocean Conservancy report in
2015 found that Vietnam together with China, Indonesia, the Philippines
amd Thailand are responsible for up to 60 percent of the plastic trash flowing
into the seas.

Linh Hai Nguyen, another responding to hashtag
#7_Ngay_Thach_Thuc or #7DayChallengeVN, said she will not use plastic straws
and single-use items, but re-usable shopping bags and eco-friendly
products.

“Such small things are things that the Earth is
requiring,” Linh shared with the online community.

Behavior changes coming from small things by
individuals can create huge benefits, said Hogberg.

“We have ideas, we have different initiatives.
But most of all, it has to come from Vietnam, it comes from someone else. It
comes from how we constantly innovate, renovate ourselves, in a way of finding
ways of changing to adjust to become a more sustainable society,” said the
Ambassador.

The seven-day Challenge – Eat, Move, and Live
Sustainably also aimed to respond to the Earth Day 2018 (April 22) themed “End
Plastic Pollution”.

During the challenge, participants could eat
vegan or choose locally-grown produce, travel by bicycles or go walking instead
of riding vehicles with fossil fuel, or seek ways to save energy and reduce
waste at home.-VNA